The Wayside Pulpit No.58

26th January 2000

Hidden Significances.  

The last two WPs have presented evidences of a plot, engineered by Satan, to upset the works of the Lord, especially in the newly formed Nation of America. The secret machinations of the Illuminati were mentioned, and these (according to one encyclopaedia) were based on the philosophy of John Locke (1632 - 1704), the pioneer of the philosophy of "empiricism", defined as the belief that all knowledge is ultimately based on experience, that is, information received through the five senses.  It denies that we have any a priori knowledge or innate ideas; we owe all our concepts to experience of the world. This was the fountainhead of "rationalism", and many in those days eagerly grasped the idea, and allowed it to ferment until it brought forth what they called "Illuminism" or "Enlightenment". It was the beginning of a large, and ever-growing movement that favoured "reason" rather than "faith". In France it spawned the Revolution of 1789, which, being based on the philosophies of men like Diderot and Voltaire, led eventually to a blood-bath because God was divorced from life. Later in the world's history, men like Lenin, Trotsky, and Marx used the concept to engineer the October Revolution in 1917. (Charles Darwin was highly acclaimed by Marx, and asked if he could dedicate his book Das Kapital to him, but Darwin was too frightened of the consequences to accept.) And so we see the growth of this great rationalistic tree, burgeoning rapidly in soil that was ideally suited for its nourishment.

  Britain in those days also underwent a revolution, known by historians as "the bloodless revolution." The enthronement of William of Orange (1689 - 1702) was the start of a new era. Parliament held the reins of government, and the monarch's power was thereby held in check. This was known as the "Bill of Rights" in 1689. In 1701 "The Act of Settlement" ensured that no future king could take Britain back to Catholicism.

France observed this happening, and imagined that a similar result could be achieved in their land, but as I said, they left God out of their equation, whereas Britain retained the spiritual principles of the Reformation. France produced the dictator Napoleon.  

In America, the Illuminists tried to get into power from the start, but thankfully the nation was sufficiently geared to the tenets of the Puritan Fathers to allow rationalism to take hold, hence the undercurrents only produced the Great Seal. However, the rise of Illuminism was seen from heaven, I firmly believe, as a powerful work from hell, and the centuries since have adequately proved that.  

In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."  The French Revolution produced the Triad which has remained to this day, "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite" (Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood.) These are great concepts, but their pursuit takes men on vastly different roads, depending on whether they walk with God, or depose Him from their lives.  

Now we must return to the subject of the Dark Day and its significance. In the last paper, one of the eyewitnesses spoke about a fall of sooty rain, which gave rise to the theory that the darkness was due to large forest fires burning to the north. But if all the testimonies be taken at face value, they negate this theory. The men of those days would have known about such a cause, but it never entered their heads. Neither did the days following provide any substantiation for such a theory. Everyone was cowed by the event, and there was much fear. No satisfactory explanation has ever been offered.  

I would now like to present some personal research, carried out in years gone by, in the process of writing a book about the dating of the Lord's birth and crucifixion. In this study I found evidence from the writings of Phlegon of Tralles (a contemporary of Christ) that the great darkness during the afternoon of the crucifixion extended as far north as Bithynia, thereby covering at least 650 miles of the earth's surface. He gave the 202nd Olympiad, 4th year as the date, making the year of our Lord's death as A.D. 33. However, that need not concern us further here, except to say that it could certainly not have been caused by forest fires, any more than the Egyptian darkness before the Exodus.  

I was intrigued by the fact that on the very afternoon of the crucifixion there was a partial eclipse of the Moon, which rose over Olivet at about 5 pm near the end of the cycle. I also knew that in May 1780, there had been an eclipse of the Moon on the 18th day, just hours before the strange darkness descended. Could there have been any connection?

I worked on this using a computer print out of all the Lunar Eclipses in history from B.C. 2000 to A.D. 2500. After many hours of tedious collation of results a very significant fact dropped out. Eclipses occur in definite cycles, given the name of "Saros" by astronomers. The shortest Saros is about 18 years (6585.3 days to be exact), after which there is a return of the cycle. But if the progress of the cycle be investigated, it is found that there is a termination of the series after a good number of years, running into centuries.  

The exciting find that I made was that these Saroses form eight separate groups, making an octave, before returning to an almost identical grouping. And the immensely long interval involved for this to occur I named a "grand saros", of 1747 years, (638127 days to be exact). This was a new discovery, and it has been set in print in a private publication entitled "Seven Steps to Bethlehem."  

Now here comes the really exciting part. From  Friday April 3rd A.D 33 to the eclipse of Thursday May 18th 1780 is EXACTLY 638127 DAYS!.  Ever since I first hit on this fact, I have felt that there must be a spiritual significance. At the crucifixion, it was as though the darkness became a sign from heaven of the extreme displeasure of God the Father at what they were doing to His Son. Could it be that in 1780 God was showing His displeasure at the rise of a new era of spiritual darkness, which men called "Illuminism" and "Enlightenment"?  I hear the prophet Isaiah thundering out the words of the Lord, "Woe unto those who call evil good, and good evil, that put darkness for light, and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." (Isaiah 5:20)  

But this is not all. Another fact emerged. Daniel received some cryptic chronological information, which has been tossed around by scholars for years in an attempt to find significant dates, and sometimes even to forecast the Lord's return. This latter exercise I have written about in recent months, saying that it contradicts our Lord's words, that no man can know the day or the hour. However, the following has come to light, and I'll leave the interpretation to those who love delving into such matters. Daniel prophesied a period of time of 2300 days, and another of a final period of seven years, which on the scale of 360 days to a "sacred year" amount to 2520 days. If we go back from this year, by 2520 years we come to B.C. 520, which according to many chronologists is the year in which the foundation of the second temple was laid in Jerusalem. But 2300 years after this event terminates in 1780, the year of the darkness, there being just 220 years left from then to the present year, when the longer term of 2520 years expires.  

Now, exactly 200 years after the dark day of 1780, takes us to 1980, and what do we find? On the anniversary of the eclipse of 18th May, is the exact date of the explosion at Mount St. Helens. From then to the present year fills in the remaining 20 years. Is it coincidental that this year, May 18th is once again on a Thursday, and the 19th on a Friday, as it was in 1780?  In addition, it is Full Moon on 18th at 9 a.m. G.M.T. as it was in 1780! I believe enough has been said to establish the conclusion that the Dark Day of 1780 was significant.  

Before 1780, the world's population, by and large, believed in "God" (whether it be Jehovah, or gods of one sort or another.) Since the beginning of the "enlightenment", agnosticism and atheism have escalated and become popularised, especially in the Western world. On Thursday January 13th this year, an article appeared in The Times (London), by Sir Ludovic Kennedy. The heading read, "Goodbye God, we can get along just fine without you."  In the article he says, "The plain truth is that most grown-ups today can no longer accept as credible the preposterous claims in the Gospels on which Christianity is founded; that when Jesus was born, his mother was still a virgin; that he himself walked on the water and turned water into wine; that he not only managed to restore life to the already decomposing corpse of Lazarus, but organised his own resurrection too."  Kennedy's words adequately reflect the groundswell of opinion in many quarters today, and tend to bolster our conclusion that the dark day was indeed a message from heaven. The Lord saw what was coming - we now see the results in dread relief by the passage of time.  

What all this means for this present year, which is the REAL last year of the Millennium, only time will tell. One can but hope and pray that it signals the end of "The Age of Reason", and adumbrates the dawn of the Millennial Kingdom of God.  With that I'll close this series of three articles.